[Oasfaa] 2005-2006 OTAG Awards

[Joyner, Shiela]

As of today, we have an additional $1.5 million in 2005-2006 OTAG funds available to award to eligible students for the spring 2006 semester. With the spring semester half over, it would seem reasonable for us to assume that most of the students for whom award claims are going to be submitted have been submitted and that we should pursue moving the awarding cutoff date to allow more students to be awarded with the funds that remain available.  

Unfortunately, several institutions have just in the past few days begun requesting spring 2006 funds for their students, and we are unsure if more students meeting the current 1500 EFC and 5-25-05 FAFSA receipt date cutoffs should be expected.  We are requesting cooperation from all institutions planning to claim awards for additional students to submit their award claim forms by the end of this week.  Early next week we will review funds availability again, and we will likely open the program to students with receipt dates later than the current 5-25-05 cutoff.  Until we are aware of the students left to be paid, we cannot speculate on a new cutoff date.

Folks, this is not at all an ideal time to learn that we have not expended all of our available funds.  We continue to struggle with the number of institutions that wait until very late in the semester to claim awards for their students.  These delays complicate our efforts to manage funds availability, and we are asking for better cooperation.  We plan to discuss this issue further with institutions during the State Regents Update session at the upcoming OASFAA conference.

Attached for your information is a spreadsheet comparing each institution's 2004-2005 OTAG award totals with their 2005-2006 awards paid as of today (cancellations as a results of refunded disbursements are not reflected in the 2005-2006 data).  If you have questions about your institution's data, please contact me.

. <<2005-2006 Sch Compare 0405-0506_3-21-06.xls>> 
***********************
Shiela Joyner, Director
Oklahoma Tuition Aid Grant Program
Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education
P. O.  Box 108850
Oklahoma City, OK 73101-8850
Internet:  sjoyner at otag.org
Voice: (405) 225-9378    Toll Free (877) 662-6231
Fax: (405) 225-9392

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